In the past - diseases like tuberculosis and malaria have been number one health concerns around the world. But not anymore. In today's world - globalization is the number one health risk facing humanity. A new study released this week by the Blacksmith Institute reveals, for the first time ever, the impact of industrial pollutants on communities across the planet. It found that industrial waste dump sites containing lead, mercury, chromium, pesticides, and other toxic horrors, poison more than 125 million people in 49 different low and middle income nations around the planet

The economic liberalization, privatization and globalization model of development in India is depriving the tribal people of their traditional means of sustainable livelihood by establishing the mineral-based industries in the tribal regions of India. The mining and other industries that are taking over the resources of the ecosystems of these people and poor peasants fail to provide them with an improved and sustainable means of making a living

Globalization or ‘Globalism’ is beneficial for the dominant and destructive for the submissive. It always streams from developed countries towards underdeveloped and developing countries in three ways: a) in the form of products and services b) as cultural dependency and domination c) and as deceptive thoughts to mould the thinking of the world population

All the cities of the world have been affected by globalization. However it affected cities of the south differently than cities of the north due to the mechanisms of globalization of the world market which has led to the widening of the gap between the north and the south and between the rich and the poor. This paper discusses how this has been associated with economic, social and spatial polarization within the cities of the south and assesses the impact of this polarization on the different aspects of human rights of the people in a southern cosmopolitan city

"Another World is Possible", but it cannot be meaningfully achieved under the present arrangement. A shake-up of the World Social Forum, of its organizational structure, its funding arrangements and leadership is required. There can be no meaningful mass movement when dissent is generously funded by those same corporate interests which are the target of the protest movement. In the words of McGeorge Bundy, president of the Ford Foundation (1966-1979),"Everything the [Ford] Foundation did could be regarded as 'making the World safe for capitalism'"

To really understand the rise in religious fundamentalism and ethnic conflict, we need to look at the deep impacts of what might be described as the jihad of a global consumer culture against every other culture on the planet. Doing so not only allows us to better understand the September 11 tragedy, but to see a way forward that lessens the violence on all sides

Despite the fact that almost every news item today brings information about the seeming endless list of crises there is hope that we have the power to turn things around. Localisation is a positive and realistic alternative to economic globalisation. It is the best way to ensure our future wellbeing and that of the planet

Today, the planet is on fire with global warming, toxic pollution and species extinction, with fundamentalism, terrorism and fear. The most powerful solutions involve a fundamental change in direction - towards localizing rather than globalising economic activity. In fact, “going local” may be the single most effective thing we can do. Localisation is essentially a process of de-centralisation - shifting economic activity back into the hands of local businesses instead of concentrating it in fewer and fewer mega-corporations

Global warming and the end of cheap oil demand a fundamental shift in the way that we live. The choice is ours. We can continue down the path of economic globalisation, which at the very least will create greater human suffering and environmental problems, and at worst, threatens our very survival. Or, through localisation, we can begin to rebuild our communities and local economies, the foundations of sustainability and happiness

Globalization is not a fair game, of course. Those with giant economies get the lion’s share of the ‘collective’ decision-making. Those with more money and global outlook tend to have influential media, also with global outlook. In both scenarios, small countries are lost between desperately trying to negotiate a better economic standing for themselves, while hopelessly trying to maintain their cultural identity, which defined their people, generation after generation throughout history

It has become fashionable to laud corporate social responsibility as a win-win practice for business and society. Yet CSR is a misleading and distracting doctrine that blinds us to the political realities of corporate economic globalization, writes Jessica Ludescher

India and China are two of the world’s most ancient civilizations. For centuries they shared advanced ideas, inventions, religious and philosophical traditions. But their economies and societies stagnated during the colonial period. In the post-colonial era mutual relations suffered a setback due to political and boundary disputes. In contemporary times they have reemerged as leading techno-economic nations. It is high time for them to move beyond conflicts and start cooperating politically, economically, and technologically for mutual benefits

While the details are unclear, the broad political consequences of SEZs are fairly clear. By shifting the very mode of governance towards the corporate sector, they will render unaccountable and opaque decision-making which will have long-lasting and widespread consequences for the citizens of the country. Not only will the formal success (and consequent expansion)of SEZs threaten more lives and livelihoods in the countryside, they will institute an autocratic labour regime in the workplace. In this and other ways already explored in the essay, they will undermine democracy in India in profound respects and might well pioneer a full-scale transformation of the political system in the direction of formal corporate totalitarianism through the via media of autonomous corporate city-states

Almost 500 special economic zones are being carved out. What is however less known is that successive government’s are actually following a policy prescription that had been laid out by the World Bank as early as in 1995

Evidence shows that Freedman's propagation on globalization is nothing but a "mere dream" and a form of deception, as even in the USA the middle class is gradually shrinking. On the other hand, the middle class/Disney land is now moving to the wretched of the earth. From priests to prostitutes all are selling their labors in capitalism as long as their labor is valued in the market. The capitalists will move to any place where labor is poor and cheap

Transfer pricing, one of the most controversial and complex issues, requires closer scrutiny not only by the critics of TNCs but also by the tax authorities in the poor and the developing world. Transfer pricing is a strategy frequently used by TNCs to book huge profits through illegal means

Today, perhaps the greatest threat to small farmers is free trade. And the farmers are fighting back. They have helped, for instance, to stalemate the Doha round of negotiations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This tug of war between farmers and free trade is nowhere more visible than in Asia

India is a land of small farmers, with 650 million of her 1 billion people living on the land and 80 per cent farmers owning less than 2 ha of land. In other words, the land provides livelihood security for 65 per cent of the people, and the small farmers provide food security for 1 billion

If economic corporations became transnational and that much powerful what is needed is a powerful transnational government based on real democracy for all the countries and citizens of the world . A government which is capable of issuing and implementing global rules aimed at realization of the maximum use of all humankind achievements for the sake of all the dwellers of our globe . A government which is capable of making economy in the service of man instead of making man a victim and a slave for the market economy

In reflecting on the good and bad sides of globalisation we find that whatever good has come out of it is actually a by-product. The very motive, maximising profit is responsible for its bad sides. So, globalisation may well be one of the most serious challenges ever to the integrity of human civilisation. As a citizen of an underdeveloped country, Bangladesh, how can we deal with this challenge?

Migrant workers are central to cross-border economic integration. A political system that ignores them -- or worse, treats them as junk mail -- is not only hypocritical but severely out of touch with reality

I will confess: I am pessimistic about the future of the planet. I think that NLG and MF are like a train that has left the station and cannot be stopped. In the following years, and even decades: China, India, Russia and Brazil – not to mention the other medium-sized ‘powers’ -- will continue to industrialise at neck-breaking speed. The thousands of billions of tons of carbon dioxide that will have accumulated in the atmosphere probably cannot be removed. Neither is the bridging the great divide between the rich and the poor in the cards. Extreme poverty will persist. It is probable that the no-holds-barred competition between the great powers for natural resources and standards of living will end in a world war. I agree with the British scientist who predicts that we have a 50 per cent chance to reach the end of the century

Farmers in United States, Europe and for that matter in other rich and industrialised countries are quitting agriculture. That makes me wonder. Why? After all, they get huge subsidies. They have the advantage of being literate and techno-savvy. They can take benefit of future trading and commodity exchanges. Linked to supermarket retail stores, they supposedly get a bigger share of the consumer price

Even after more than half century of freedom in India the gulf between rich and poor is ever widening and with all the glitter of globalisation hunger, starvation and suicide deaths are increasing amidst agricultural surplus, and sometimes fifty million tonnes of grain in godowns rots but cannot be sold at subsidised prices for fear of pushing the market prices down. That is the harsh economic reality!

What is it like to be a modern-day Indian prince? Devinder Sharma and Bhaskar Goswami explain how the laws of the land are being redefined to bring in the reality of the royal tag for the rich and beautiful in the name of Special Economic Zones

While Muhammad Yunus must be credited highly for his contribution in innovation in banking and opening up vast sea of market for the huge accumulated finance capital, linking of poverty alleviation with this corporate success is ridiculous and may not be very innocent one

The Government while advocating in the WTO to protect the due interest of the Indian farmers also need to act locally by reforming its own distorting policies and programmes, so that farmers in Ladakh can also be pride of their own production, their own wisdom, their own economy which is based on organic, cooperation and compassion. This way we can avoid 'Farmers Suicide' in Ladakh

Here was the industry we would have seen in the northeast and around the great lakes half a century ago. It has migrated to the other side of the planet, while the US builds little more than houses and weapons

Greedy and powerful American companies not content with using economic inequality to devastate working- and middle-class Americans are now using their clout to fight efforts in China to combat economic inequality there. They want to keep wages low there so they can drive wages down here and everywhere else

You cannot hide 300 or 400 million starving mouths, and the insistently unjust social reality of India will break through into one or another rear-view mirror, disturbing the fantasies of financiers' wives and girlfriends

Thousands of textile workers in Mumbai are now being evicted from central parts of the city with the closure of the mills and the rich taking over their spaces which are highly coveted by the property market

The adjustment and structural reform policies of the IMF and the World Bank and now the strategic plans of the IADB and the CAF are part of this perpetual war. A war whose purpose is conquest, territorial control, domination and pillage, as in any war

Just after the judgement was delivered, employees of a cola company distributed press notes welcoming the judgement. They also distributed cola to the assembled lawyers and journalists. Advocate Ramakumar who represents the Perumatty Grama Panchayath where the Coca Cola factory is situated alleged that the cola companies had prior knowledge of the judgement

Present environment in India is reflecting the spirit drawn from the fascist ideals. Some ardent believers are for honest implementation. So, State, an oppressive power is slowly erasing the rights of trade union. The freedom expression to voice against corporates is being slowly chocked. Judiciary is speaking Liberalisation of economy and curbing of labour rights

Sociologically, the incident of farmer suicides in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra due to indebtedness is actually the result of the combined effect of 'Relative deprivation' and 'Sudden crises', which came in the category of anomic suicide. Significantly, the feelings of relative deprivation are the outcome of the first green revolution and these feelings has been augmented by the present market policy of Globalization

In what can only be characterized as arrogance and impunity, we are learning that Coca-Cola and Pepsi have continued to sell soft drinks in India with dangerously high levels of pesticides - three years after even the government of India confirmed that these products were dangerous

As corporations have grown in size they've gained in power and influence. And so has the harm they cause - to communities, nations, the great majority of the public and the planet. Today corporate giants decide who governs and how, who serves on our courts, what laws are enacted and even whether and when wars are fought, against whom and for what purpose or gain

As the level of anger and resentment against Coca Cola touches new heights throughout India, rights activists in the U.S. have increased pressure on the company to mend its ways of doing operations in rural areas

Harkishanpura is a non-descript village in Bathinda district of Punjab in northwestern India. It suddenly made its way into news when in an unprecedented move the village panchayat announced that the village was up for sale. That was in Jan 2001. Since than five more villages in Punjab - in the midst of the food bowl of the country - are awaiting auction

The Kerala State Pollution Control Board on Friday ordered stoppage of production at the Palachimada unit of the Coca-Cola Company in Palakkad district for failure to comply with pollution control norms

In an unprecedented judgement Division Bench of the Kerala High Court directed Perumatty gramapanchayath (local council) to renew within one week from Wednesday, the licence granted by the panchayat to Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Ltd to run its plant at Plachimada in Palakkad district, in the south Indian state of Kerala. The court ordered that if a formal licence is not issued by the panchayat within the time prescribed, it should be deemed that the company possesses the renewed licence

In a move designed to make Indias patent legislation conform with the World Trade Organizations Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) patent regime, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has pushed a patent amendment bill through Indias Parliament with the support of the Left Front

Fluent in his subject and familiar (rather too well, it appeared at times) with the American lecture circuit, Sainath sprinkled his talk with interesting factoids about the rich-poor divide, the politics of SARS, why he stopped drinking Coke and Pepsi, and a host of other gems

One of the exciting events at the World Social Forum (WSF) at Porto Alegre in Brazil this year in the last week of January, was a dialogue with John Perkins, the author himself, who, from being an economic hit man, has now crossed over to the "other side" and joined those who have all along believed that "Another world is possible"

There is a vacancy for the most senior post in official world development circles, a job that is of direct interest to billions of people across the globe. The process and candidates are shrouded in secrecy and the only candidates in the running are U.S. citizens

In India two laws have been proposed  a seed Act and a Patent Ordinance which could forever destroy the biodiversity of our seeds and crops, and rob farmers of all freedoms, establishing a seed dictatorship

Coca Colas appalling human rights record, combined with its high boycott vulnerability ratio make it the ideal target for a boycott. Max Keiser, investment activist, and Zak Goldsmith, editor of the Ecologist, have formed a partnership to target Coca Cola by bringing down the value of its shares

Indian farmers have come up with what they think is the real thing to keep crops free of bugs. Instead of paying hefty fees to international chemical companies for patented pesticides, they are spraying their cotton and chilli fields with Coca-Cola

The increasing collaboration of ruling classes in the form of unity and conflict demands much more increasing collaboration in the form of unity in thoughts and in struggles from the democratic and revolutionary forces

The July 31 WTO framework agreement, agreed upon by 147- members in Geneva has drawn a structure that needs to be implemented for furthering the Doha Development Agenda.No sooner the details began to be analysed, it became clear that the developing countries had not only been duped but robbed in the daylight

Who can provide the investment for an energy supply for small communities who do not have significant cash incomes, who are dispersed over mountains and seas, usually without local experience in technical and financial aspects of an energy system and largely without the economic linkages for exploiting electricity-based small enterprises?

The Canadian Supreme Court upheld a ruling against a farmer who used genetically modified canola seeds patented by Monsanto while replanting his field. The farmer maintained that he inadvertently used seed that had blown into his field

In the recent years, Wayanad, a tiny hill district in Kerala famous for its spices and coffee plantations, has been in the news for the widespread suicides by distressed farmers - a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly commonplace in rural India as a result of implementation of free market economic policies

The recent publication" Fair Globalisation: Creating Opportunities for All", produced by the World Commission on Social Dimension of Globalisation, appears as a formal recognition of the unfair and inhuman character of globalisation

Ever since Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S.Rajasekhar Reddy took charage on May 14, more than 300 farmers have committed suicides. This was the official death toll in the suicides register till June 25. Unofficially, the death toll is estimated to be much higher

About 3,000 Andhra Pradesh farmers committed suicide in the past five years owing to debt trap, drought and crop failure. After the government of Y S Rajashekhar Reddy announced free electricity for agriculture , waiver of electricity dues and a Rs.150,000 financial assistance for the relatives of the farmers who committed suicide , there is a spate of suicides, on an average 70 farmers a week

The dilemma into which humanity has been dragged by the system is such that there is no option now: either the present world situation changes or the species runs a real risk of extinction. But let's not lose heart, Let's plant ideas

According to official figures, 50 farmers have died since the Y S Rajashekhar Reddy government took over on May 14. However, according to the Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangam, a farmers outfit of CPI(M), 92 farmers have killed themselves in the last two weeks. According to another estimate, 220 farmers have committed suicide from Jan 1 to May 13

It is a cruel irony that countries around the world that suffer from some of the highest rates of poverty, disease, corruption, violent conflict and human rights troubles are also - at least on paper - some of the richest

Outsourcing has become a phenomenon that's restructuring the labour relations around the world, undermining the life source of some and benefitting some others but always benefitting the transnational corporations. No solution is possible outside of a political struggle waged by the working class against the profit system as a whole

A U.S. financier, Warren Buffet, who has close links with the "military-industrial complex" is the main buyer in the disinvestment of the state owned oil company ONGC of India.It is a take-over of India's oil resources by American oil-interests

All rewriting of trade rules for agriculture is being driven by the same forces and interests that brought agriculture into the Uruguay Round of GATT, with its genocidal impacts on peasants and the poor

The global coffee industry has endured colossal changes over the past fifty years. Production of beans has shifted from country to country in the interest of transnational corporations pushing the price to historical lows and impoverishing millions of farmers

Smokescreen of the global media has been dispensed with and the real messages in our times come from the armed forces of the imperialist powers. While their words have become fuzzier, their bullets have become sharper

To reduce its deficit per IMF decree, Argentina had cut $3 billion from government spending-a cut that was necessary, the authors note here, to "accomodat[e] the increase in interest obligations." The Secret Documents the Masters of the Universe Would Rather You Not See

First Seattle in 1999, and now the sudden death at Cancun 2003, the developing world has demonstrated that it will no longer take it lying down. Their anger and rebellion has already caused the biggest derailment to the development agenda. And, rightly so

The collapse of the WTO negotiations in Cancun was the result of a tremendous organizing by the global south. It directly challenged the neoliberal world and might be the first visible signs of the possibility of a social democratic turn in the global system

On September 10, opening day of the Fifth Ministerial of the World Trade Organization, Lee Kyung Hae climbed the fence that separates the excluded from the included and took his life with a knife to the heart

The brutal economic model advanced by the World Trade Organization is itself a form of war because privatization and deregulation kill--by pushing up prices on necessities like water and medicines and pushing down prices on raw commodities like coffee, making small farms unsustainable

On the eve of the formal opening of the World Trade Organisation's ministerial conference, a 20-member coalition of developing countries led by India, Brazil, China, South Africa and Argentina, has taken centre stage with its distinctive proposals for reform of global trade in agriculture

Europe and the United States - so often economic enemies - arrive at crucial world trade talks today lined up against some of the poorer nations, insisting that developing countries must make their share of concessions

At the Cancun ministerial conference one bone of contention is the international trade in pharmaceuticals. On one side are most developing countries and humanitarian groups who want poor people to have access to cheap, generic, essential medicines. Against this proposition stand the big pharmaceutical companies, backed by their governments in the United States and Europe

Tests conducted by the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) have confirmed recent media reports about the toxic nature of the sludge generated by Coca-Cola's bottling plant at Plachimada, in Kerala's Palakkad district

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) today announced that 12 soft drink brands collected for testing from in and around Delhi contained residues of four extremely toxic pesticides and insecticides  lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos

The dreams of billions of farmers have been completely shattered,who were initially promised the stars when the WTO was formally launched. It is only a matter of time before the collapse of agriculture in the developing world triggers massive displacements from the rural areas

As the imperialist forces were waging a war to colonize Iraq a silent revolution was occuring on the other side. Signs of a new global order have begun to unfold. This tremendous organizing on a global scale, directly challenges a uni-polar world

George Bush seems to be preparing to destroy the WTO at the next world trade talks in September not because its rules are unjust, but because they are not unjust enough. "Our Aim Should Not Be To Abolish The World Trade Organization., But To Transform It", says George Monbiot

A leak of European negotiating demands in WTO service sector negotiations reveals that it will be extremely difficult for countries, states and local governments to reverse privatization experiments that fail if the demands are incorporated in GATS.

Indian farmers are starting to feel the direct impact of the farm subsidies provided by rich nations to their farmers. American wheat is available at Chennai at a landing price much lower than that of the home grown golden grain while the wheat surplus in the north western parts of the country rots in the open

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness  and our ability to tell our own stories. Arundhati Roy's speech at Porto Alegre , for the world social forum

To ask the third world farmers to increase productivity and thereby reduce the cost of production to remain competitive in a globalised world is a fallacy since it is impossible for them to compete with the farmers of the developed world ejoying huge amount of state subsidy.

In perhaps the most comprehensive study to date, Scorecard on Globalization 1980-2000, Mark Weisbrot, Dean Baker and other researchers at the Center for Economic and Policy Research documented that key measures of progress have declined globally in the past twenty years

World Bank's new Private Sector Development Strategy (PSDS) promises to intensify the Bank's support for privatization, extend its privatization advocacy to sectors still generally conceived of as public, and introduce novel approaches to create private markets where none now exist.

Joseph Stiglitz, the World Bank's Chief Economist for three years until January 2000 and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001, speaks out with brutal frankness about the Washington Consensus institutions' hypocrisy and the effects that the globalisation programme has had on the developing world.